Bangladesh bank boss quits over $100m cyber-theft he told no one about

Bangladesh’s central bank governor Atiur Rahman has resigned after between $81million and $101m was stolen from the bank’s account at the New York Fed in one of the largest cyber heists in history. Unknown hackers breached the computer systems of Bangladesh Bank and transferred the money from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to casinos in the Philippines between Feb. 4 and Feb. 5. Rahman’s resignation came days after the Bangladesh finance minister said the central bank did not inform him about the heist, and that he learned of it only a month later when news first appeared in the media.

I resigned and the prime minister accepted it.

Atiur Rahman

The central bank said earlier that cyber criminals had tried to withdraw $951 million from its U.S. bank account but the other transactions were blocked after a typo in one of the instructions raised red flags. More than $30 million of the money that was stolen was handed over in cash to an ethnic Chinese man in Manila, a Philippines senator looking into the suspected laundering scheme said. The New York Fed has said its systems were not breached, and it has been working with the Bangladesh central bank since the incident occurred.

Bangladesh bank